[NYer]

Yet between conservative Catholics, the expanding Muslim community and growing numbers of evangelical Protestants, an alliance is being forged. Its aim is to protect a faith-based value system against the encroaching secularism of the west.

Catholic Ping - please freepmail me if you want on/off this list

[NYer]

Your thoughts?

[Jaysun]

Muslims, conservative Catholics and evangelicals want to change Britain.

The three shouldn't be grouped together. The bastard child of the pagans has entirely different goals than the other two do.

[aliquis]

The only problem is that all the majority parties in the UK are under the impression that the secularism is the way forward... Considering the current political situation in the UK, it may take ages before this sentiment seeps through to the mainstream politics.

[macbee]

While their politics differ, both W and Tony Blair are men of great courage and deep faith. This poses a much greater political risk in the UK than here:

And on the seventh day Tony Blair created...

Tony Blair knows it is one of the most delicate of subjects. When asked about it he squirms and tries to change to a more comfortable line of inquiry. But quietly the Prime Minister is putting religion at the centre of the New Labour project, reflecting his own deeply felt beliefs that answers to most questions can be found in the Bible.

The Observer can reveal that Blair is to allow Christian organisations and other 'faith groups' a central role in policy-making in a decisive break with British traditions that religion and government should not mix.

The Prime Minister, who this weekend becomes the longest continually serving Labour Prime Minister in history, has set up a ministerial working group in the Home Office charged with injecting religious ideas 'across Whitehall'. One expert on the relationship between politics and religion described the move as a 'blow to secularism'.

Blair's move is believed to have the strong support of the two other leading Christian members of the Cabinet, David Blunkett, the Home Secretary, and Paul Boateng, Chief Secretary of the Treasury.

The working group will be chaired by the Home Office Minister with responsibility for what is called 'civic renewal', Fiona Mactaggart. The members will include Estelle Morris, the former Education Secretary who is now the Arts Minister, and Christian organisations including the Evangelical Alliance. Known as the Faith Community Liaison Group, it will have an input into controversial policy areas such as faith schools, which are allowed to select their pupils on the basis of their beliefs, and religious discrimination.

Blair, a committed Christian who keeps the Bible by his bed, knows he is taking a risk by revealing the importance he places on religion in informing his politics. He also knows that many of his key officials feel uncomfortable about the central role that God plays in his life. There were furrowed brows of consternation when Blair, asked who he would answer to for the deaths of British soldiers, replied: 'My Maker'.

Alastair Campbell, Blair's communications director, said 'We don't do God' when the Prime Minister was questioned in a recent interview with Vanity Fair about his religious beliefs. When Blair wanted to end his televised address to the nation at the start of the war in Iraq with 'God bless you', he was advised against it...

[Click link above to read the rest of the article]

We should all keep Prime Minister Blair in our prayers.

[madprof98]

It's interesting that abortion is the litmus test, just as it is here. Interesting too that the question is whether there is any measure of human worth other than market value. It sounds to me as if the Brits are very much on the right track.

[Unam Sanctam]

Maybe tactical alliances with Muslims on some moral issues makes sense, but Christians should definitely reject any appeal to violence similar to Muslim doctrine on jihad.

[Edgerunner]

There may be a glimmer of hope, provided these people can stand the barrage of inflammatory and ludicrous verbal attacks that will result from their public declarations.

[thoughtomator]

Trying to build a coalition with Muslims is just foolish. They don't want a decent, moral society, they want a Sharia-governed hell.

[keats5]

Please tell me that most Brits hate this rag.

[PAR35]

If I were designing a campaign in England, I'd concentrate on law and order issues rather than broader moral questions. I'd appeal to the fear of street crime and home invasion. Stir in a little anti-French nationalism, and build from there.

[denydenydeny]

Its success...has kept the coffers filled and the propaganda machine churning.

Nice objective article.

[driftless]

If Miss Odone thinks that Thomas Frank is a prescient writer, she has a lot of problems. Frank is the sociologist or something who couldn't understand why Kansans keep voting for Republicans. Apparently Miss Odone doesn't get it either. It's highly amusing to hear liberals on one hand call conservatives greedy, rapacious despoilers of the earth and then on the other call them obsessed with religion which values morality over filthy lucre. Well libs, which one is it?

[montag813]

Look how the MSM are lumping together Evangelical Christians and Muslims in Britain.